Old Boy Snape
by Butyok kapitany
Summary: Snape ponders life and rediscovers humour upon turning forty. Post-war philosophical short.


Snape ponders life and rediscovers humour upon turning forty. Post-war philosophical short. Reviews are welcome.

 _Disclaimer: This story is non-commercial. The characters belong to J.K. Rowling_

 **Old Boy Snape**

Snape slashed his quill across the calendar with an impending doom kind of finality, then swiftly deposited it into his quill-stand. He leaned back in his chair, exhausted.

„I'm getting old." he told McGonagall, or himself really - it could pass as a leakage of his vast amount of inner dialogue he was experiencing lately.

„Nonsense, Severus!" exclaimed McGonagall „You are not even fifty and believe me, when you _do_ arrive there, it will pose its entire universe of surprises not even your rambunctious logic would have expected at forty." he looked disbelieving enough for her to add „You will continue to surprise yourself every decade."

„How reassuring" he told her with a half-hearted sneer and a slight widening of his eyes „knowing it is not the bottom of the hill after all. Should I be glad that my descent has not yet become a freefall? Is that what you're suggesting?"

She just hummed and pursed her lips slightly, hiding a smile behind mirthful eyes.

„And if that would be the case - what would you like to land on?" she asked half-mockingly. At his incredulous expression, she added „When it comes to life, our impact depends on how we manage the landing." Silence reigned after that statement, one side emphasizing its significance, the other submitting to contemplation. When neither of them knew what to add, he decided to revisit the question at a later moment, preferably in solitude. He made a mental note jotting down his question that would require further studying 'what if the freefall stage never progressed to a stop?' then resolved himself to jolt them both out of this standstill. With a deep draw of breath, he raised his head and stood up.

„Well, as much as I'd like to know the answer to every irrational question like that," he made a gesture at his classroom „I must address more pragmatic issues in a short few minutes. It's best not to dawdle with those on tow." In agreement, McGonagall stood as well, and gathered her gown more firmly around her shoulders, as if to burrow into the warmth of the solidity of the moment, thus shielding herself from the inevitable improbability of the future.

„Thank you for making time for that appointment." she said politely. Then continued as if to reassure him „I meant what I said. It's better to rediscover your youth from time to time, than to repeatedly submit to getting old." she looked at him meaningfully. He replied with a raised eyebrow „Oh? That must be why Albus was so sold on sweets for kids, surely." to which she just smiled conspirationally „Perhaps." and they left it at that. He saw her to the door, and nodded at her when she left.

Closing the door, he set about to arrange the classroom for the second years he was meant to teach. While the recipe wrote itself onto the blackboard, he stepped to the front of the classroom, and appraised with a detached interest the size and state of the student desks. He would hardly fit behind them, having long since outgrown such sized places both phisically and mentally, but he never really have grown _into_ any other measure of space, and the suddenly wide and gaping hollowness that was his adult life swallowed up his developing self. He could not fill any kind of measure after leaving these same desks more than two decades ago, and realized with a brief flash of understanding that beyond Lily's death, this fact must have been responsible for the immeasurable desolation of his twenties. Moreover, his decadent fumbling for a crutch of measures and stumbling into inappropriate ones. like the Dark Arts and Death Eater Standards (in all capitals and with curly black initials).

He couldn't put his finger on when has that stopped, or more like evened out, but it must have done so in the last few years, as that feeling was gone. Of what has replaced it, he had no idea. It felt like a wind was blowing right through him, never swaying him. Long years of wear was evident on the tables after hundreds of teenage fingers carving and smoothing the edges and nooks, like rivers washing their beds, as unrelenting and patient as grains of sand in an hourglass while submitting to gravity. The same long years have left their fingerprints on his bones just as subtly, but irrefutably. He could feel the smooth curves of his vertebrae, and account for every indent made by the uneven steps he took, until he developed a certain gait. Have the direction, or the number of his steps counted more in shaping his spine?

He sighed, although could not fathom the feeling that brought it forth. Freefall, he supposed, was just another state of being in place, if the wind he felt blowing through him was any indication.

Right now, he knew his place. Without having been told, or having planned it around, he felt it firmly deep within, as he continued to act on this profound, yet gentle driving force that permeated his being.

The clock chimed in perfect accord to his musings, and his feet started on their own volition towards the door. He opened it with a swirl of air, stopped just for a heartbeat, then intoned „Inside." He deftly turned and paced to lean against his desk.

Being conscious of the clumsy stumbling of his students who were so out of tune from and unaware of the ticking clock on the wall, and his own inner ticker pulsing away its rhythm as if a grand universal drum gave the beat, he actually had time to marvel at the incredibility and unique perspective that was presented before him as twelwe-year-olds.

He felt the exact moment to make a slight shifting movement, and the class started to quiet. Another audible breath, and attention gathered itself to him. „You will be brewing Burn Salve today, as you can see from the recipe. For those of you who find their potion too thick after adding the porcupine quills, you may balance it with more aloe extract. Before you begin, place your essays on your desks."

And so the shuffling started, then spread throughout the classroom as they milled about for ingredients. A wave of his wand, and the essays rested themselves neatly on his desk. His spacious attention with the windy feeling persisted, and permitted him to be aware not only of grading essays, but what each student was doing.

The novelty of scaring them out of their wits with sniped comments has waned significantly over the years - thus his newfound sense of getting old, mixed with a slight, but constant boredom. He knew by now, that his students had the consciousness span of approximately their fields of vision (or more like that of mice), and whatever happened to fall outside of it remained nonexistent to them - until of course, it forced itself into their awareness, like a gracier grating its way to the ocean. „Mr. Gunner, you don't need that ingredient today. Nor ever in the foreseeable future." Of course, like glaciers, his comments tended to disrupt the waters of his pupils' minds (even more than it already was), making them drop things or snap their head up sharply, as if they heard the roar of a lion from the bushes and wanted to ascertain where it might lurk. Being aware even of this mental inequality did not make it more appealing. On the contrary - he felt the misery of being left alone in this tide and wide expanse of awareness. „Miss Tucker, I can clearly hear you whispering, so you may as well say it out loud." There. That silence. That excited, eager, adolescent trepidation of your mummy and daddy scolding you for doing something they did not want you to do, mixed with the silent rekindling of your desire to try harder next time to bend the rules towards self-realization, mapping out your territory, reconnoitering the difference betweend what they want and what you want, and eventually falling out of their boundaries forever, and wondering where all those differences disappeared to.

He grabbed the next essay without ever breaking pace.

Now that he has expired every and all emotional responses and judgements concerning his students' state of mind (or lack thereof) over the years, his attention couldn't grab any morsel of interest over it. Even the pang of remorse, that he had once been as they are now, was devoid of its previously enticing, sweetly sour and deliriously dark aspects. He missed that sharp and wounding light of venomous self-depreciation that would flash him with definition, and he could cling onto its shadow. This nothingness suffused him and his activity with a new type of sorrow, that proved so fleeting, so unscrutable, that he couldn't hold it long enought to savour its bitterness. Leaving him hungry. Ravenous even. This hunger proved easy to soothe into such mild an insatiation, that did not even prompt for more serious forms of filling, like before.

And thus the mistery of Albus' lemon drops seemed to have been solved at that moment. Although, if anything McGonagall said was something to go by, he could expect an unexpected resurgence of surprises. Of unexpected quality, of course. Maybe he will eventually discover a maddening infatuation with socks, or taking bubble baths with rubber duckies. Or - he shuddered - cats. He will be the mad cat man of Hogwarts nobody dares to intrude upon for the fear of the acrid smell of cat piss shriveling their lungs if they got too close.

He harshly rolled up the essay, and decided to stop for a few heartbeats to appreciate his humour – his jest, which currently saved his line of thought and reassured him, that even when everything else failed, he could still snigger about anything in his own mind. His last resolve, his sturdiest bastion, his last man standing (in cat-piss-stained robes no less). His post-traumatic, twisted and mad sense of humour, which proved capable time after time to tame even the darkest yearnings of his heart, his most insane notions and sickeningly disturbing realizations. Now he knew what he wanted to land on.

His mind stilled, and his eyes scanned the classroom. The clock ticked away on the wall, cauldrons emitted their fumes, knives wound their way into matter connecting surreptitiously with hard wood, and his heart thumped its steady sustenance, one with the pulse of the Great Magnet. Everything was in order.

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End file.
